Episode 70: “Tuesday”

Captain John Harriman looked around the bridge of the Enterprise-B. “Well, isn’t anybody going to tell me I don’t suck?”

Montgomery Scott stood up. “You don’t suck, laddie.”

“Thank you.”

“You really suck.”

“Aw...”

Pavel Chekov agreed with his longtime friend. “I don’t know how you even became a captain in the first place, Harriman! I mean... What kind of captain gets Kirk killed within the first few minutes of a movie?”

“He’s not really dead, you know. He’s just trapped in that Nexus thing. It’s while he’s with Picard that Kirk really dies! It’s Picard that sucks!”

“Yes, but we’re not supposed to know that yet. Therefore, you suck.”

Harriman got rather angry. “I don’t have to take this! I’m going to my quarters!”

He got out of his chair and stepped into the turbolift. Or rather, he stepped into the turbolift shaft. Harriman fell screaming down the shaft...

Several hours later, Harriman regained consciousness. He was laying on one of the beds in the Enterprise-B’s Sickbay. Demora Sulu was tending to his wounds. “You’re finally awake...”

Harriman slowly sat up. “What happened? The last thing I remember I’m stepping into the turbolift...”

“The turbolift doesn’t get here until Tuesday.”

“But I thought we had a turbolift in Star Trek: Generations.”

“We did. But we kind of needed the turbolift to help plug the hole the Nexus ripped in the ship.”

“And I thought we didn’t have a medical crew. How am I all better?”

“Well, I did the best that I could. But I don’t think that chewing gum holding you together is going to last very long...”

A voice came over the comm. “Bridge to Sulu. There’s a ship approaching us.”

Sulu ran up to the bridge, where the Excelsior was onscreen. She squinted at the screen. “What in the heck happened to Daddy’s ship? It’s covered in icky black stuff...”

The image of the Excelsior’s exterior was then replaced by an image of the Excelsior’s bridge, where Admiral Janeway was sitting in the captain’s chair. Sulu was quite confused. “You’re not Daddy! Where’s Daddy?”

Admiral Janeway smirked evilly. “Daddy? Oh, you must be Sulu’s brat. Well, he’s not here at the moment... But I’ve got something even better! Dukat, fire the weapon!”

An evil beam of energy shot out from the evil Excelsior and struck the Enterprise-B...

Captain John Harriman found himself standing on a railing beside Scotty and Chekov. Chekov asked, “My God... Vas anyvone in here?”

Scotty nodded. “Aye...”

Harriman looked around. “Uh... Haven’t we already done this?”

Scotty nodded. “Aye...”

“Don’t you say anything else?”

Scotty nodded. “Aye...”

Several hours earlier (from the Excelsior’s point of view) or several centuries later (from the Enterprise-B’s point of view), the evil crew of the evil Excelsior were still cleaning up the mess left behind from the villains who had visited them from the previous episode. And there was more bad news on the way...

Admiral Janeway sat with her evil senior staff to discuss the recent events. “First of all, I think Rand has some information for us all.”

Rand stood up with a PADD in her hand. “I just got this from the Villie Awards...”

Dear Evil Crew of the Evil Excelsior:

After going over our notes and such, we are sorry to inform you that you did not win a Villie Award this year. Why? Because you suck! And don’t bother applying next year either. Or any other year, for that matter. Why? You know the answer.

Sincerely,

Darth Vader
Mr. Morden
Cigarette Smoking Man

Naturally, Janeway was quite miffed. “We suffered all that damage to the ship, we lost Zathras and the Apocalypse Box, and suffered another humiliating defeat by the Relativity just for that?”

Janeway pulled out a phaser rifle and vaporized the PADD, which was still in Rand’s hand. “There’s got to be somebody out there that sucks even more than us!”

Valtane nodded. “There is.”

“Who?”

“Back in our time, the Enterprise-B was captained by John Harriman, who went down in history as being the worst Star Trek captain ever.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm... If we did something to the Enterprise-B, would that alter history in favor of the Vaadwaur?”

“Sure. No Enterprise-B means no C, D, E, F...”

“I get the point, Valtane! Does that sound good to you, Zo’or?”

“That is... acceptable.”

“And stop it with the stupid hand gestures!”

Meanwhile, the crew of the Relativity were ripping off their own scene from Star Trek: Generations...

An old sailing ship sat out in the middle of the ocean. The name “Enterprise” could be seen on it, mostly because there was no special effects money for changing the name on the existing set. On deck, most of the Relativity senior staff were in old navy officer uniforms enjoying the scenery. Finally, Braxton nodded to Yar. “It’s time. Bring him up.”

Yar went down below. A few minutes later, she brought forth Lt. Ducane, who was was all tied up. Yar threw Ducane to the ground, and Braxton unrolled a piece of parchment. “Lt. Patrick Ducane, you are charged with... Wait a minute. Patrick? Since when did you get a first name?”

“Just now, apparently.”

“Well, good for you! Now we all have first names!”

“You don’t have a first name yet, sir.”

“Sure I do! It’s just that I can’t reveal it yet... Anyway, Lt. Patrick Ducane, you are charged with putting up with the worst timeship captain ever for several years, and being the lone voice of reason on a ship of fairly crazy people. How do you plead?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“So noted. Then it is my my sad duty to confer upon you the rank of Lt. Commander, which is long overdue. May whatever god you believe in have mercy on your soul...”

“How very Q of you, sir.”

“Hey, if I’m going to steal lines from other characters, I can at least make them good ones. And now, in accordance with the rules of parodies, you must now grab a hat hanging from a rope over the plank. Free the prisoner!”

Ducane was untied. Braxton muttered to Dax, “He’ll never do it.”

“Sure he will. The hat’s only six feet above the plank.”

“What idiot hung it that low?”

“You did, sir.”

“Oh. No wonder Ducane got promoted...”

Ducane promptly went over to the plank, grabbed the hat, and then stepped back on the deck. Everyone cheered. Braxton grinned wickedly. “Computer, delete plank!”

“That’s the beauty of this plan, Admiral. The Enterprise-B doesn’t get all its Treknobabble until Tuesday! We set the timeloop to end before Tuesday, and the ship will be trapped forever!”

“That’s brilliant, Valtane! How shall I reward you for your efforts?”

“Well, you could give me back my personal supply of coffee that you took from me.”

“Nah...”

Now that the backstory’s been explained, we cut back to the Enterprise-B, whose crew finally realized that they were in some sort of temporal loop...

Harriman sat down with Scotty, Chekov, and Demora Sulu. “Where is everybody? I thought I said the entire senior staff had to attend this meeting!”

Sulu nodded. “Yeah, but the rest of senior staff doesn’t get here until Tuesday.”

“Ugh... Fine. We need to find a way to break this temporal loop. I suggest that we use phasers and photon torpedoes against the Excelsior when it shows up, thus destroying it before it can set up the loop.”

“We can’t do that. Phasers and photon torpedoes don’t get here until Tuesday.”

“Then we can modify the shields to repel the Excelsior’s weapon.”

“The stuff we need to modify the shields doesn’t get here until Tuesday.”

“Okay, what if we...”

“Tuesday.”

“What about...”

“Tuesday.”

“Do we have anything on this ship?”

“Not really.”

“Is there anything we can do to break the timeloop?”

“The only way we could break the loop is to stop the Excelsior from using its weapon. And we can’t stop it from doing so. So we’re stuck.”

The Red Alert klaxon went off, and the four rushed onto the bridge. Just like before, the Excelsior was approaching. Harriman hailed them. “You again? Can’t we talk about this?”

Admiral Janeway’s face came onscreen. “Again? Oh, we’ve already set up the timeloop from your point of view... No, we can’t talk about this. We’re mean and evil and we do mean and evil things.”

“Don’t make us use force to stop you...”

“Give it up, Harriman. We’re from the future. We know that you won’t get any decent stuff until Tuesday, so you’re powerless to stop us. Valtane, fire the weapon!”

Harriman once again found himself on the railing next to Scotty and Chekov. “Again?”

“Aye...”

Demora Sulu’s voice came over the comm. “There’s a ship approaching us, sir.”

“The Excelsior?”

“No, it’s some other ship. They’re hailing us.”

“I’ll be right there.”

The trio made their way to the bridge. Harriman sat down. “Onscreen.”

The Relativity’s bridge appeared on the main viewscreen. Demora jumped out of her seat. “There’s my Daddy! Hi Daddy!”

Sulu smiled. “Hello, dear.”

“What are you doing on that ship, Daddy? Why aren’t you on your ship? Who’s that obnoxious woman on your ship? Are you...”

“Stop asking questions, dear. Daddy’s getting a headache.”

“Sorry.”

Braxton interrupted. “Our sensors have shown that the Excelsior has placed your ship in a temporal loop. We’re here to make sure they fail this time.”

Harriman asked, “How? We have nothing over here until Tuesday.”

“We’re going to beam over and modify your shields for you. Then we’ll set the next phase of our plan into motion...”

A little while later, Braxton, Ducane, Dax, and Damar beamed into the Enterprise-B’s Engineering. Harriman was there to meet them. “Greetings. Do you need me to show you around?”

Braxton shook his head. “No, we already have all the ship’s schematics. Being from the future, we already know this kind of stuff.”

Ducane, Dax, and Damar got to work, while Harriman pulled Braxton aside. “You’re from the future?”

“Yes.”

“Then could you tell me something about my future?”

“Not really. Temporal Prime Directive and stuff like that.”

“I just want to know if I’m always destined to suck...”

“Well... As Starfleet’s worst timeship captain to Starfleet’s worst starship captain, I guess I could tell you. But you have to keep it hush-hush. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Sure.”

Braxton whipped out a book. Harriman was quite confused. “A book?”

“Not just any book. This is The Next Generation Technical Manual. And it’s got a little entry on the Enterprise-B. It says that the ship and her crew were pretty good at exploring and making first contacts. So you can’t wind up too badly.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

“No problem. Now let’s see how those shield modifications are going...”

A little while later, the Excelsior approached the Enterprise-B. Harriman hailed Janeway. “You again? This is really getting tiring.”

“Again? Oh, we’ve already set up the timeloop from your point of view. Well, yeah, it’s us again. Valtane, fire the weapon!”

The Excelsior fired its weapon, but this time, it was stopped by the Enterprise’s shields. Janeway was aghast. “What? How can this be?”

The Relativity decloaked next to the Enterprise. Braxton’s voice came over the comm. “This is how, Janeway!”

“Braxton! You showed up before we did? You suck! Quick, Mr. Hamster, get us out of here!”

The Excelsior re-entered the timestream. Harriman asked, “Aren’t you going after them?”

“We’ll get them eventually, but we need to remove our technology from your ship. Temporal Prime Directive and all that...”

“Sure. Thanks for all your help.”

Several days later, on Tuesday, the Enterprise-B received everything that it had been lacking. Harriman sat in the captain’s chair. “Sulu?”